Word of the Day

: August 12, 2026

gnomic

adjective NOH-mik

What It Means

Gnomic is a formal word that describes something cryptically said or written in few words.

// The painter is notorious for offering terse, gnomic responses to questions about her work that leave interviewers and critics scratching their heads.

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gnomic in Context

“Indeed, the album that ‘Michelangelo Dying’ reminds me of most is [Laurie] Anderson’s seminal ‘Big Science,’ from 1982. ... Both albums feature gnomic lyrical pronouncements. (‘Rigid, collapse,’ [Cate] Le Bon chants on the track ‘About Time,’ reminiscent of Anderson talk-singing, ‘Big Science, Hallelujah.’)” — Rumaan Alam, The New Yorker, 26 Sept. 2025

Did You Know?

A gnome is an aphorism—that is, a short phrase that expresses a true or wise idea. Gnomes are sometimes couched in metaphorical or figurative language, they are often quite clever, and they are always concise. We borrowed the word gnome in the 16th century from the Greeks, who based their word gnōmē on the verb gignōskein, meaning “to know.” (The other gnome—referring to the dwarf of folklore—comes from New Latin and is unrelated to the aphoristic gnome.) We began using gnomic, the adjective form of gnome, in the late 18th century. It describes a style of writing, or sometimes speech, characterized by pithy phrases, which are often terse to the point of mysteriousness.